The Elements:

The Brackets:

Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Banjo

The classroom hushed as Miss Anderson walked in. Don Walker went to the door, where they talked quietly out of earshot of the pupils.

‘Where’s Randy?’ she whispered, ‘ he hasn’t been in since Wednesday.’

Don moved closer, making a gesture to keep the class quiet.

‘I haven’t seen him, Kate; there was a lot of bullying on Wednesday when he brought his banjo into school. They were threatening to throw it in the dumpster, saying that would be the perfect pitch.’

‘Kids can be so cruel with their teasing’, she whispered, ‘they don’t realise how deeply it can hurt people.’

‘Have you tried phoning his mother?’

‘No answer’, she replied, ‘I think we should go to his house at lunchtime, just to make sure.’

‘OK’, said Don, ‘take my car, but I have to stay here.’

*****

Kate drove up the lane, following the directions on Don’s SatNav.

She could see a woman in the kitchen as she knocked on the door. Mrs Thompson opened the door, while removing headphones from her ears.

‘I’ve come about Randy; he wasn’t in school yesterday’, she started.

‘I tried calling you’, Kate continued.

Mrs Thompson pointed at her headphones, ‘I don’t hear the phone when I’ve got these on.’

‘Is Randy okay?’ asked Kate, ‘we were all worried about him, because the kids were being mean to him.’

‘He’s fine; he’s out the back, playing banjo with Bonzo’, she offered the headphones to Kate, ‘you might want these’.

‘Is his playing really that bad?’ asked Kate, ‘I thought the kids were just being nasty.’

‘It’s pretty bad. I think that’s why the bus driver wouldn’t pick him up this morning. He’s been sitting there all day.’

‘The dog seems to like him.’

‘Well, he saved Bonzo’s life: put his own life in danger, trying to pull him out of the river. They’ve been inseparable ever since.

Go and see if you can get a word out of him.’

*****

‘Hi Randy.’

‘Hi Randy’, she said louder, motioning for Randy to stop playing.

She stooped to Randy’s level.

‘Why weren’t you at school yesterday, Randy?’ she asked.

Bonzo barked.

‘I was worried about you’, she said softly, removing the headphones.

‘The kids on the bus were shouting that they didn’t like my playing; even the driver doesn’t like my banjo. I just like to strum along, and make up some tunes’, sobbed Randy.

‘You have to go to school though, Randy. You can learn the banjo after school, and practise at weekends’, said Kate in a comforting voice, ‘I’ll take you back. Finish your tune, while I have a quick word with your mother.’

Mrs Thompson was at the back door watching them as Kate walked back.

‘Did you get anywhere?’ she asked.

‘I think so’, said Kate.

‘I know he’s my son, but I think his father was playing some kind of joke on me, when he bought him that banjo’, she took the headphones from Kate.

Kate rubbed her ears, ‘Yes, there’s a limit to how much we can take, but Bonzo seems to love it.’

‘Bonzo? Bonzo’s deaf, Kate – stone deaf.’

Adagio

Jacob Stalvey O’Neal

Edgar sat on the creaking steps, his back leaned against the flaking white railing as his pudgy six-year-old fingers plucking ineptly at the strings of his banjo. The atonal notes hovered in the air, tinny and honest, competing with the warbling of the jenny wrens playing about the clusters of wisteria hanging over the trellis. Inside, his mother hummed as she scraped and scrubbed the worn dishes in the sink. At the far end of the porch, sprawling lazily in the shade, lay Buddy. The collie mix paid no heed to Edgar’s plinking, instead trying to nap, tongue lolling out in the late afternoon heat.

Edgar tried in vain to stretch his tiny hand across the fret, frowning in concentration. His father had shown him, once, where to put the fingers, which strings to hold down, which ones to let sing freely. But try as he might, he simply couldn’t reach. It was too far.

In frustration, Edgar made a fist and strummed his knuckles furiously across the strings. No sooner had the first discordant notes sounded when he heard a shriek from the edge of the porch, off under the parlor window. He glanced over, and Buddy had jerked upright, yelping.

The notes faded. Buddy’s head was cocked to the side, ear raised. Experimentally, Edgar raised his hand again, and with a sweep of his arm swept it across the strings once more. And again Buddy yelped, a loud, plaintive howl, tapering to a mewling whine. His head shook from side to side, and he whimpered.

Edgar smiled, slowly at first, his lips spreading into a grin of mischief.

Again he strummed. This time, down, and back up. And down again.

Buddy writhed piteously, crawling and shaking, pressing himself against the siding of the house as far from the steps as he could get, as if to disappear into the wall. He clawed for purchase as he backed against the house, crying, howling.

Edgar kept strumming.

But now Buddy stopped howling.

Instead he parted his lips, showing his teeth, almost as if to smile. He let escape from his throat a soft, purling noise, the beginnings, just the stirrings, of a growl.

And Edgar, blissful, heedless, with all the terrible ignorant bravado and invincibility of childhood, raised his arm once more.

And once more was all it took.

And the banjo sang.

And Buddy leapt.

And Edgar screamed.

*****

Buddy was long gone, barrelling merrily down the street, when Edgar’s mother pushed open the screen door with a slam and let out a screech of her own. The mangled, inanimate thing that had been Edgar was cradled limply in her trembling arms when Buddy spied a little girl, swaying lazily in a rope swing in her yard.

“Hi doggy!” she called brightly.

Buddy wagged his tail.

“Do you like music?” she cooed.

From the pocket of her dress the girl pulled a small silver harmonica.

She smiled as she put it to her lips.

And Buddy smiled too.

Trading Bills for Banjos

Malissa Greenwood

Janine stared at the computer in disbelief. This can’t be happening, where is all of our money going. Of course she could see where the money was going. Doctor visits. School supplies. Vet bills… The list of expenses was never ending. But the list of income, on the other hand, was short. And the credit cards were at their limit.

“Mom!” “Hey don’t hit!” “Mom!” Her two boys were yelling for her simultaneously and then, as though on cue, the dog started barking on his way through the dog door. In an effort to suppress the noise she marched into the living room where her sons were.

I swear to the lord above if those boys wake April I’m going to beat ‘em within an inch of their lives! Endangered brothers, that’s what they are. “Hush now! The baby is sleeping! What is going on out here?!”

A slurry of explanations spewed forth from her rowdy four- and six-year-old sons. She held up a hand to stop them “One at a time please! Marcus, why is your brother crying?”

“I don’t know but he hit me with the controller!” Marcus exclaimed, pointing a chubby finger at his little brother Keenan.

“Because he called me stupid! Stupid is the not nice word Mom!” Keenen choked out between subsiding sobs.

“Marcus, stop bullying your brother! He’s only a little guy. Keenan, buck up. You can’t just hit someone because they call you a mean word. Ok?” They nodded slowly, considering their options. “Now If you two can’t get along and keep quiet I’ll gonna bust your butts!”

A jumble of “No!” and “But mom!” were met with her patented look of serious discipline.

She heard the dog continue to bark outside. “Alright then. Well you need to be quiet and so does your dog. Go out to the backyard and play with him please. Keep him from barking for thirty minutes and then, if your civil, you can go back to the Xbox.”

As the boys trudged off to the backyard, Janine settled back behind the computer to continue deciding which bills could be paid and which could be put off.

*****

Janine woke later to the sound of music coming from the backyard. She glanced at her watch and wondered how she managed to fall asleep in a house as loud and stressful as hers. She checked the video baby monitor to find April was already out of her crib. She stumbled to the back door, relaxing only when she saw her husband holding April in one arm and the video camera in the other.

“Hey sweetie, didn’t want to wake you. But you’re just in time for the encore show.” He smiled and nodded to the grass where Marcus and Keenan were standing side by side facing their dog Scruff, matching banjos in hand.

“Banjos?” She asked.

“Garage sale down the road.”

She sat down next to her husband, pleasantly stunned at her lifting mood – a beautiful summer evening, a happy baby and husband, and her two sweet, no-longer-arguing boys playing some banjos for their dog. Maybe their lives weren’t endangered after all.

Bully For You

Vance Rowe

Aloysius sits on the sidewalk and is playing his banjo for his dog. He isn’t very good at it yet but the dog is a captive audience for him. He even squawks out a tune for him: “Ah’m a’ pickin’ on my banjo for my dog. I sit and pick for hours right here on my log..”

His song was interrupted by a local teenager who likes to bully the younger kids.

“Hey, Stupid. What did you do with the money?”

Aloysius stopped picking and singing and looked up at the bully with a sigh.

“What money, Tommy?”

“The money your parents gave you for banjo lessons,” the bully replied with a laugh.

They young boy did his best to ignore the bully and tried to go back to picking his banjo.

The bully didn’t like being ignored so he snatched the banjo from the young boy and ran away with it, laughing maniacally.

This bully picks on younger kids everyday and Aloysius is a target just about everyday and he is sick of it. Aloysius groaned got up off of his log and followed the bully. He is red-faced with anger. This boy has been absolutely pushed to his limit of tolerance for Tommy and his bullying. He grabbed the dog’s leash and led him in the direction that Tommy went. As they walked, he could hear the bully strumming the banjo every once in awhile. He followed the sound and then saw the bully walk up on the porch of his house. The bully sat in a chair on the porch and strummed the banjo until he was called into the house. The bully set the banjo down and went inside. Aloysius quickly ran up on the porch, grabbed his banjo and walked away. The bully soon came back outside and was angered when he saw the banjo was missing.

Tommy went off in search of the young boy. He went right to the spot where he saw the boy earlier sitting on the log and there he was strumming and singing to the dog again. The bully ran up to him, pushed him off of the log, grabbed the banjo and ran off through the woods, cackling with laughter. Aloysius sighed and went off into the woods after the bully. It was starting to get dark out and the woods were even darker. The bully was in unfamiliar territory and ran until he came to a high drop off. He stopped suddenly but lost his footing and fell over the ridge. He grabbed a thick root growing out of the side of the ridge and hung on for dear life. It was about a hundred foot drop with rocks and water below. He yelled for help and Aloysius appeared above him.

“Kid, help me. Please.”

“Where’s my banjo?”

Up there somewhere. I dropped it. Please help.”

He looked around and found the instrument and began strumming it and then began singing as he walked away. “Strumming on my banjo and I can’t lie. I have a feeling that bully’s going to die.”